Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Literary scholar, writer, and poet. Pseudonym: J. N. Attended Balliol College, Oxford, and the University of Glasgow (as a Snell Exhibitioner). Studied under Robert Buchanan and became friends with Sydney Dobell. Wrote the introduction to Dobell’s Poems (1875) and Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion (1876). Edited the Glasgow University Album (1854). Privately published Fragments of Criticism (1859), featuring remarks on Carlyle and Browning. His poetic works include Hannibal (1873) and The Death of Themistocles and Other Poems (1881). Jointly with Algernon Swinburne, Albert Venn Dicey, and Thomas Hill Green, he founded the reading society Old Mortality. Became first Regius Chair of English Literature at the University of Glasgow in 1862. More widely known as a critic than as a poet. Biographical information: ODNB. (KH, DD)